


Death- in three parts

by silvercolour



Category: Takarazuka Revue Musicals, ひかりふる路 | A Passage Through the Light - Takarazuka Revue
Genre: Character Death, Character Study, Gen, History, The Reign of Terror, sometimes there be personifications of Death, takarazuka be that way, yes death is a character in this and no its not an Elisabeth crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:08:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24356314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silvercolour/pseuds/silvercolour
Summary: A reign begun with death can only end the same.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	Death- in three parts

**Author's Note:**

> You may notice this work has three chapters listed! There will be chapter each for St. just, Danton and Robespierre^^
> 
> More tags may be added as relevant for events from the next chapters.

The first time St. Just sees Death is on the newly renamed Place de la Republique, at the executions of the next batch of people who are against their new republic. He cannot currently recall whether these are nobles, sympathisers, or simply people who do not agree with the plans they -Robespierre and himself- have been making.

St. Just notices the pale man only when he starts moving. He has not seen him arrive, has not even observed what direction the man came from. He cannot even in all honesty say that he is certain this pale one is a man, can only assume so from the trousers it is wearing. He is simply  _ there _ .

Looking closer, the pale man is wearing a black suit. That is as close as one can describe it, St. Just thinks. It is not quite nondescript, but somehow could have been either brand new or a cut of fifty years ago or older. Yet St. Just feels it would not have stood out back then any more than it does now. And it does not stand out in the slightest. It is the deathly pallor of the man, and the surreal grace of his movements more than anything else that make the man stand out. Yet no one else seems to notice these things, as the man starts moving towards the Guillotine with purpose.

St. Just moves to stop him, and the guards at his back give him a strange look. They have seen nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that would disturb Citoyen St.Just. To them, this execution day is no more ordinary or extraordinary than all it’s sister days. They share a confused glance and move to follow him.

St. Just sees the pale man calmly walk past every citizen, every guard in the square, and briefly wonders if he might be going mad, or if the world itself has perhaps gone mad instead. No one else notices the figure. Only a short distance ahead now, the man is already climbing the stairs to Madame Guillotine, completely ignored by all around.

Not even giving the soldiers enough time to step aside for him -how did the pale man get past them? He cannot remember it even now- St. Just himself shoulders his way past his own soldiers. Stretching out a hand to grab the figure, worried about what this strange man plans to do, angry that the man should’ve gotten so far unhindered, he-

As soon as he touches the man his fingers feel cold, like they are dipped in icy water. Yet he cannot actually feel the man’s shoulder, even though he sees his own hand touching the man. But the pale man apparently  _ has _ felt the hand on his shoulder and turns around with a fluidity as though moving through water instead of air.

The pale man has black eyes, like a night sky without stars, and it is the only thing St. Just can look at. Then the man speaks and it is like there is nothing else in the world to hear, like he is the only thing one ever needs to listen to in life. 

”It is not your time,” is all the man says, with a voice like tolling bells and the dying’s last whispers at the same time. St. Just can feel the cold in his hand spread through his body, a chill that seems to reach even into his soul. Shock makes him take a step back and he almost falls down the stairs. Solid hands catch him and he twists around to find that one of his own guards has followed him and caught him.

A loud and final hissing noise, and a  _ thunk _ .

He hears Mme Guillotine behind him, hears the crowd cheer and he turns back slowly, uncertain of what he expects to see there, but fearing it regardless.

A body, lying headless before the Guillotine. The executioner, reaching into the basket for the head. Beyond them the exuberant crowd, glad to see the end of another aristo. There is no one else. Certainly no man who is not supposed to be here, pale or otherwise.

Later, at home, after more than one glass of wine St. Just convinces himself that there was nothing strange, that there must’ve been something in the water, that he ate something unusual- anything different, anything is fine, there must be a reason- anything. 

Even later, at night, St. Just does not believe everything he has told himself before. He cannot forget those eyes, the impossible cold, nor the voice like the end of everything, telling him his time has not yet come.

* * *

It is years later, on 9 Thermidor in the second year of the Republic, that St. Just finally sees the man again.

He had almost forgotten the pale figure that appeared that summer day on the Place de la Republique, although he dreams of the vision still. These dreams have been coming more often, of late.

St. Just is standing on the speaker’s dais, and had been addressing the National Convention when two different speakers shoved him aside in anger at what he had been saying. These two are even now speaking to the gathered Convention, shouting over each other to be heard. St. Just cares not for their angry opinions, and might have been offended by their rudeness. Might have, if not for the pale figure watching him in the stands across the hall.

The hall is far too loud and the distance far too great for him to hear the pale figure. When the man speaks he cannot hear the words, yet he imagines he can still hear the tolling bells and whispered words that have been haunting his dreams.

He does not know what words the man spoke, but the message he understands all too clearly. It is time.

  
  


Eventually the shouting in the hall finds a direction, and it is against Robespierre and St. Just and all those who still call them allies, or heroes. It is indeed, time.

They take refuge in the Hotel de Ville after the warrant for their collective arrest is issued. His friends are despairing, several of them attempting to escape the fate of the Guillotine by taking their own lives. Others plan their attempt at a last fight, readying the few guns they have brought. It is time, indeed, is all St. Just can think.

Robespierre, the people’s hero –his own hero– sits in silence. Any who attempt to ask him for advice, for his plans, are met with the same stony stare that condemned so many to the Guillotines. St. Just wonders if Robespierre too knows their time has come.

They are found– of course they are, these politicians are not soldiers, they were never going to fight their way out. They are arrested, taken away in chains to the prisons they once helped fill and then helped to empty again.

The next day, as the sun rises again over the Place de la Republique, St. Just sees that pale figure one last time, and knows him for what he is: Death himself.

And this time when the figure speaks he hears not the tolling bells, nor the whispers of the dying; he can hear those around himself already, has heard them all through this last night. Instead, he hears in Death’s voice the certainty with which Robespierre pronounced judgement, and set forth new laws. He hears his own voice, raised in condemnation of all those acts that opposed their Republic. He hears how their own actions sealed their fate, as Death speaks: “It is your time.”

**Author's Note:**

> What did you think of this first chapter? Let me know in the comments or [here on tumblr](https://silver-colour.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
